Complexity Is Sometimes a Signal

Executive Field Note 045

Complexity is usually treated as a problem.

Simplify it.

Summarize it.

Reduce the variables.

Find the essential point.

Often that is useful.

But sometimes complexity exists because several things are true at once.

Simplification then does more than remove noise.

It removes relationships.

The situation becomes easier to understand precisely because part of the situation is no longer present.

Executive Question:

What became clear only after something important was removed?

Published by Executive Insights. A publication of Axiom Research Press